Sunday School: Growth from God (1 Corinthians 3:1-9)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe.

Paul’s Rebuke of Immaturity in 1 Corinthians 3

All right, let's come to our text, 1 Corinthians chapter 3, once again, is where we are. Last week covered pretty much a whole chapter. Today we're going to look at a much shorter section, just looking primarily at verses 1 through 9.

Although when I do an overview of this section, I'm going to include the rest of the chapter as well, because I think it's important for us to see exactly where Paul is going and it helps us to understand even more the section that we'll be reading today.

So this is 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 1 through 9. I'm reading from the English Standard Version and then after reading our text, I'll say another brief prayer and then we'll get to our lesson today.

This is the word of the Lord from the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth. But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it.

And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, I follow Paul and another, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human?

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers, you are God's field, God's building. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, as we look into this word today, I pray that you would teach us and you would guide us.

And may we not become complacent believers, like we're content and okay with the level of faith that we've been given and the things that we've come to believe and, hey, I'm saved, I've punched my get into heaven card, so what more do I need to do?

But we desire to grow all the more in Christ. And that takes work. It's not something that happens automatically, but it is a pursuit of Christ that we are supposed to be in until the day that we reach Christ in glory.

And so continue to grow in us the desire so that we may grow in maturity, looking deeper and deeper into the wonderful truths of the gospel that have been proclaimed to us at the first. And yet we continue to study and learn all the more.

Teach us and guide us according to your spirit today. It's in Jesus name that we pray, amen. Amen. I think every one of us have experienced to a certain degree, setting a goal and then not meeting that goal.

Amen. Have you ever even set a goal and you didn't even start on it? If you didn't even start, I'm going to this year, the new year's resolutions, right? This year, I'm going to do this. Did you ever even start that new year's resolution?

You said that you were going to accomplish this year, or maybe you got a list of resolutions you're going to try to accomplish next year, whatever it might happen to be. You know, I think of times that I've said for myself, I'm going to lose weight.

Now I don't even, I don't even change anything. I don't exercise. I don't change my diet. So then three months from now, I wonder why I step on the scale and I still weigh what I don't understand. I thought I would have lost weight by now.

I didn't change anything at all. What goals do we set for ourselves? We don't even put the work forth to accomplish those goals. Just because you have the state of mind about something does not mean that you're doing anything virtuous.

As a matter of fact, you probably heard the statement that the road to hell is paved with what? Good intentions. We have the intention to do things that we never actually do. Now that might be overstating the case a little bit, the road to hell.

Genuine Faith Must Grow in the Lord

But nonetheless, Paul is confronting a people here who are not maturing in their faith. And we should be. As a matter of fact, it's one of the signs of genuine faith of a believer that we would grow in the knowledge of God.

The sign of true faith of a believer is not that you had walked the aisle one time and you said a prayer of faith, or you were dunked in the baptismal during VBS when you were a kid. The sign of genuine faith is that the same conviction that you felt on the day that you heard the gospel and believed it is a conviction that you continue to experience your whole life long, wanting to turn from sin and the ways of the world and escape from the snare of Satan and walk in Christ, honoring him not only with some confession that you made years ago, but desiring that your entire life would be a confession unto the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's not something that happens automatically. And I think a lot of us believe that it will. Even with regular church attendance, I go once a month or even every week. And so with church attendance, I should be automatically growing in the Lord, right?

I don't know if you've experienced this during church, but it actually takes effort to listen to Pastor Tom or whoever is preaching the sermon and understand what he is saying and then go from here and apply those things.

They don't just happen by osmosis because you were sitting in the room and now those things just stick to your body and get absorbed into you and now automatically you're a better person because you attended church on Sunday.

You actually have to hear those things and listen to them and desire to obey them. Now we have been given the blessing of a new roof and moved into this building with a new metal roof on top and so now we're experiencing that metal roof.

That's the extra white noise that we're getting in the middle of this lesson here. Anyway, so yeah, it takes work. It takes effort. One of the things that I have to remind myself as a pastor, as a husband and a dad who's a pastor, is that my wife does not automatically grow in the Lord just because I'm a pastor.

My kids do not automatically come to know who Jesus is and put faith in Him and grow in the knowledge of Him just because we come to church every Sunday. There still has to be a diligent effort put forth on my part as the head of my household to guide my wife to pray together and to lead my children in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord.

That takes deliberate work. It takes actual effort. And many of us think that our spiritualness will just automatically happen for us. After all, it's not something tangible. I can't set my hands on it.

I can't work out like going to the gym, so maybe my growing in the Spirit will just automatically happen. No, just like you, if you desire to do something or accomplish a goal in your physical body. So we must also do the same in our spirits, in our souls.

There's a workout that we must do that we may grow in these things. Just last week on Sunday evening, I did an overview of the book of Philippians, and it's there in Philippians 2, 12 and 13 that we read, Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work, for His good pleasure. Three times in those two verses, we have the word work. Work out your own salvation. Once again, this church is not working toward those things.

As a matter of fact, Paul identifies, I know you're not sound in your doctrine. I know that you're not growing in this faith. I know that you are immature and behaving in a human way. How does Paul know that?

How does he know that that's the condition of the church in Corinth? Because the Holy Spirit revealed it to him? Sure, but not by some sort of vision or not by the Spirit coming to Paul and saying, Hey, the Corinthians are doing really, really bad right now.

You better write them a letter. Paul knows that they're behaving in a merely human way because he says, There is jealousy among you. There is strife. And are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?

Because the church is not unified, because they are not growing in Christ. Those are the signs that Paul knows that they are not mature. We just read this whole chapter, 1 Corinthians 2, where the Apostle Paul encourages the Corinthians to grow in the Spirit, to understand that the wisdom that we have comes not from man's efforts.

It's by God. What did we read about in the first chapter? The very fact that you came to faith in Jesus Christ was not your own doing. It was the work of God. Verse 30, because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.

We get to chapter 2, Paul says, not only was your conversion the work of God in you, not your work, but God's work, so the wisdom that you have is not your wisdom. It did not come from man. It comes from God.

Any wisdom that we can claim, any knowledge of God that we have is by the blessing of God that has been given to us. And so Paul has talked about your knowledge of God, the wisdom that comes from God, and then in this next part, chapter 3, verses 1 through 9, we're reading about growth from God.

The very fact that you grow in the Lord is not a work that is accomplished by you. It is the work of God. But as long as you're still fixed on your flesh and fixed on the world and in jealousy and strife between one another, you're behaving in the flesh.

You're not focused on Christ, you're focused on yourselves. And so that growth from God is not happening because they're not focused on the Lord. We're going to be reading about this this week and the next week.

The analogy that Paul gives in this reading, we just read about it, what's the analogy that he gives? He who plants, he who waters are one and will receive the wages according to his labor. So what's the analogy there?

You are God's what? What's that? No, not his work. You are God, it was in verse 9, you're God's field. There you go. So we have an agricultural example, right? Kind of have the ag metaphor. That's what we get this week.

And then next week, what's the next metaphor? It's right there, the next part of verse 9. Building. You are God's building. So first Paul gives the metaphor and says, you're God's field. And then he says, you're God's building and goes into the next metaphor.

That's going to be kind of our hinge verse. It's going to take us into next week as well. So then he talks about being built up as a building unto the Lord. And he begins and ends this chapter the same way.

So he has this rebuke, this exhortation in chapter 3, verse 1, I could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. And then look down at verse 18, still chapter 3, look at verse 18.

Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For as it is written, he catches the wise in their craftiness.

And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that they are futile. So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours and you are Christ's and Christ is God's.

So he comes back to that again. That's kind of the bookends that we have here on this particular chapter with Paul rebuking them for being in the flesh and saying, one says, I follow Paul and I follow Apollos.

He comes back to those names again and tells them not to be in the flesh any longer, but rather to be in Christ as they have been called to be. The outline of the lesson today, verses 1 through 9 looks like this.

In verses 1 through 4, Paul confronts the Corinthians for being still in the flesh. In verses 1 and 2, he says that the immature cannot digest God's word well. And then the second part, verses 3 and 4, he says, your immaturity is evident by your division.

The second part of the lesson today is verses 5 through 9, servants of the Lord, where Paul talks about how the ministers, he and Apollos, and even will include Cephas again, coming up in chapter 4, we are ministers and servants of God.

That's in verses 5 through 6. And then he makes a point for the Corinthians to understand that ministers are nothing without God, verses 7 through 9. What did Paul say to them at the end of chapter 1?

He said, let the one who boasts, boast in, boast in what? The Lord. Yeah, boast in God. Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. And what does Paul do at the end of this particular section? He boasts in the Lord.

He says, hey, we, me and Apollos, we're nothing. He who plants and he who waters are one and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers, giving the glory unto the Lord and not to himself.

The very thing that he told the Corinthians to do, don't boast in yourself, boast in God, Paul models for them in this particular section. So let's get to this here. Part 1, once again, still of the flesh, verses 1 through 4.

And then part 2, servants of the Lord, verses 5 through 9. Paul says, beginning in verse 1, but I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

So he's not saying they're unbelievers, but they're still acting like new believers and they shouldn't. Anybody remember how long Paul was in Corinth when he ministered to them there, according to the chapter we have on that in Acts 18?

How long was Paul in Corinth? About a year, yeah, about a year and a half, 18 months, I think is what it says. So Paul had been there, Paul, the apostle Paul had been right there with them for a year and a half.

And now he's been gone for a little while. He's writing this letter from Ephesus. Do you think that they should have grown up a little bit by this point? And yet he finds the way that they're acting, they're acting like a bunch of non-believers.

You're acting like that, even though you have the gospel. So you're believers, but you're infants in the faith. You guys need to grow up. Remember in chapter 13, the love chapter of 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, you surely heard this passage before, when I was a child, I what?

I thought like a child. I acted like a child. I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. That's Paul really continuing the same rebuke that we've got right here in chapter 3.

You're infants in Christ. You need to grow up. I was there. I was right there with you guys. When I was a child, I acted like a child. You know what happened? I grew up. And so that's what he's telling the Corinthians that they need to do as well.

Now the term that's used here for their immaturity is being people of the flesh. The word there is carnal. The word is carnal. That's what's translated into flesh. Now it's not carnal in the Greek. It's actually carnal in Latin.

But that word means flesh. If you've ever heard the term carnal Christian before, this is the verse where that term comes from. Because Paul is rebuking them for being carnal Christians. For acting like Christians, but still being in the flesh.

Or claiming to be Christians, but still acting like they're unbelievers. Now there's a debate that is spurred among evangelicalism, especially in the last several decades with the easy-believism movement, the whole altar call thing where people come forward and they just say a prayer and then claim that they're saved and then they go the rest of their lives, never showing any evidence of that conversion at all.

So because of this easy-believism thing, there's been this debate that's been going on regarding what's called carnal Christianity. Well that person did become saved because they said the prayer, but then they just lived their lives as a carnal Christian.

Is there such thing as a carnal Christian? Well there would have to be to a certain extent because Paul uses the term here. So let me ask the question another way. Is there such a thing as a perpetual carnal Christian?

The answer to that question is no. John lays out plainly in 1 John, if you say that you love him but you do not obey his commands, you're a liar and the truth is not in you. You want to see a confrontation against carnal Christianity or perpetual carnality, just go to 1 John because he throws a bucket of cold water on that in that letter, especially in chapter 2.

So no, we cannot live perpetually in carnality and still be able to claim to follow Christ. So what's the evidence going to be that the Corinthians are not perpetually carnal? Or perpetually carnal? What's the evidence going to be in their lives?

That they're genuine believers? What's that? Why would it be obvious that they're not Christians? The way they're living, right? So Paul's writing to them and he's rebuking them. He's rebuking them in the spirit.

He's rebuking them in the name of Christ. He's telling them exactly according to the scriptures. I mean, he's made multiple Old Testament references so far and we see him make more Old Testament references toward the end of chapter 3.

So he's using the scriptures to rebuke this people. And he's brought the word of God to them to show them how they're behaving in a carnal way and not according to the spirit. So what should be the response from the Corinthians in light of this rebuke?

They should repent. If there is genuinely the spirit among them. If they are really a church of Jesus Christ and the spirit is there and they desire to honor the Lord that in this rebuke they're going to repent.

They're going to turn from their carnality and go back to growing in the spirit as they should be. That's something that we should expect in the life of a person who claims to be a believer. Now when we get to chapter 5, Paul makes a stinging rebuke about a man who's living in sexual immorality in the church.

And he goes on to say, this is chapter 5 verse 9, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters because then you would need to go out of the world.

But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, reviling, drunkenness, and swindling. Not even to eat with such a one, Paul says.

So what he's talking about there is one who's been rebuked and won't repent and they continue in their carnality. They are demonstrating that they truly do not have the Spirit of God in them. And so here's the rebuke.

He's not calling them unbelievers. But if they don't listen to the rebuke and turn from their sin back to the path of righteousness then it would demonstrate through testing that they were never actually genuine believers in the first place.

As we read about in 1 John 2 .19, they went out from us that it might become plain that they were not of us. For if they were of us that they would have continued with us. But they went out so it would be seen that they are not really of us.

And so Paul is calling the Corinthians to this. And he loves these Corinthians, right? He's not just writing this letter because he needs to exercise a little bit of angst. He loves this church. He doesn't want them to walk in this carnality that would eventually expose them as unbelievers if it goes unchecked.

He wants them to recognize their sin and turn back to the truth of the gospel that they believed at the first. Paul goes on to say in verse 2, I fed you with milk not solid food for you are not yet ready for it and even now you are not yet ready for you're still of the flesh.

And once again he gives the evidences here of the fact that they're so immature and living according to the flesh. There's jealousy and strife among you. Are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?

For when one says I follow Paul and another I follow Apollos, that was the division issue that he confronted in the first chapter. Are you not being merely human? You're dividing on superficial things instead of being united on spiritual things.

In Hebrews chapter 5 we have a pretty similar passage that's mentioned here regarding a confrontation of immaturity. Go ahead and turn there with me. Let's turn to Hebrews 5. Hebrews chapter 5. Get past 1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews.

If you hit James and 1st and 2nd Peter you went too far. Hebrews chapter 5 verse 11. Now here a rebuke is being made of some of the Hebrews, not all of the Hebrews, but certainly some of them who should have matured in their faith much more than where they are right now.

And so the writer of Hebrews has this to say, Hebrews 5 .11, about this we have much to say and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.

You need milk, not solid food. Same thing we just saw in 1st Corinthians 3, right? You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Now let me ask you this question, what doctrines of the Christian faith are for the immature?

What would you say are like basic doctrines that we all should be hearing and growing in from the very start, from the very beginning? What would you say? I know some of you got distracted by the noise outside, it's alright, back in here.

What would be some basic truths that all of us as believers need to come to know at the very start of our faith? Where would you begin with somebody who's a new believer? Divinity of Christ, that's a great one, knowing that Jesus is God.

What's another one? Incarnation, that God became man and dwelt among us, the word became flesh. What's another doctrine? We're all sinners, yeah. The depravity of man, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Christ crucified, that's where Paul starts in 1 Corinthians, I came preaching to you nothing but Christ crucified for our sins. What's another doctrine? Resurrection, and we're going to get to that in 1 Corinthians, that Christ was raised from the dead and then we who are in Christ will likewise be raised from the dead.

What's another? Say again? The Ten Commandments. For some reason I thought I heard you say we need to be Baptists, I thought that's what I heard you say there. That might be one too, we might need to say that.

Yeah the Ten Commandments, so the law of God, what does God expect of us to live in holiness and uprightness? The Ten Commandments are like the summation of the law and the prophets, in fact the whole love God, love people thing that we are fond of saying, that's the summation of everything that's in the law.

One more, what's another one? Say again? Christ returned, yes, the return of Christ, and sanctification, growing in the knowledge of God and in holiness. Bill do you have one more? That Christ was sinless, that's right, that He was the perfect spotless sacrifice for us, lived a perfect life, lived a sinless life.

Okay, now having asked you that, I've asked what are basic doctrines that we all need to know at the very beginning of our faith? Let me ask you this question now, what would mature doctrines be? We're growing up in our faith, we're really mature, so what are some of those doctrines that we need to learn as mature believers?

Hey wait a minute, she said that, she said that about new believers, that we need to learn sanctification, do we need to know that as mature believers too? Yes we do. Are there things about sanctification that you're learning right now that you knew when you first became a Christian?

You're learning new things about sanctification aren't you? Yeah, you should be able to look back at who you were the day you were baptized and you're like a completely different person now, because you've grown in your faith, you've grown in the knowledge of God.

What's another doctrine that we should be, that we should come to know all the more as mature believers? Soteriology, the study of salvation, what else? Character of God, anybody else? What glorification?

Yeah, what'd you say? Justification, we're justified by faith, declared innocent before God by faith in Jesus Christ. Here's an idea of another doctrine, how about the deity of Christ? How about the resurrection?

How about Christ's crucifixion? Like are there deeper things that you've come to know about those doctrines? You knew them like on a very elementary level when you first got saved but as you're growing in them, do you ever hear Pastor Tom say something like, well we've talked about Christ crucified enough, we need to move on to something else, you ever hear him say something like that?

No, you never will, that's right, praise God, Tom will never do that, and Paul says right from the get-go, I'm preaching Christ and Him crucified, this is what they've forgotten, this is what they need to grow in.

The same doctrines that we were learning when we first became Christians, our doctrines we're continuing to learn as we grow in this faith, we don't stop learning those things, we continue to grow in those things, we continue to grow up in this.

So when we're talking about immaturity here, we're not talking about like moving beyond certain doctrines, you guys need to get to some new doctrines now, it's not a matter of moving laterally across like a doctrinal spectrum, it's a matter of depth, you need to be going deeper and you're still right there on the surface as though you had just heard this from the very first time, and it's because you're still behaving in a human way that you cannot get deeper and deeper into these spiritual truths that we've been taught from the gospel that was first proclaimed.

Servants of the Lord and God Giving the Growth

So this is Paul rebuking them of being still of the flesh, and then in the next section points out how he and Apollos and those who have come ministering to them with the gospel, even what Paul is delivering to them now, this is from the servants of the Lord.

He says in verse 5, what then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believe as the Lord assigned to each. In other words, Paul is saying, God assigned me a certain task, he assigned Apollos a certain task.

Just because we have different responsibilities in our ministries doesn't mean that we're after different aims. Both Paul and Apollos, and Cephas who was also mentioned, they all desire the same thing, to glorify Christ, to preach Christ and Him crucified, and that these Corinthians would grow in the knowledge of Christ.

He says, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything. Paul is saying, once again, I didn't come preaching to you with words of eloquent wisdom, as he said earlier in the letter, I came preaching Christ and Him crucified.

So that the power would be in the message that's preached, not in the power of Paul, but in the power of Christ. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor, for we are God's fellow workers.

We're working with the Lord. We are working in the Lord. It is God working through us for your benefit. We're not working in opposition to one another. We're not in competition. Apollos and I don't get together and talk about who had more converts this week.

We are working as God's fellow workers. And then says to the church, you are God's field. The ag example that we've had here. And then the next one, which we're going to look at next week, you are God's building.

This work of being grown, it is God who provides the growth, Paul says. It is God who raises up the building. And so as long as these Corinthians are focused on themselves or squabbling with one another, they're not unified in Christ to receive that growth that God gives to his people.

Now, I'm going to talk more about this tonight because this really is quite the theme of the letter of to the Colossians as well. We've got this banner up here rooted in Christ because this church back in 2019 had gone through the letter to the Colossians rooted in Christ.

What's going to happen to us if we're rooted in Christ? We're going to grow. Yeah, that's the whole nature of that of that theme and of that banner rooted in Christ. We grow into him who is the head, who is Christ Jesus, which we've also read in Ephesians chapter four.

So let that be the admonition that's given to us that we would hold on to Christ. We would hold fast to Christ. We would focus on him, my friends, whatever you need, whatever you're hungry for, whatever you long for in this world, you are fully satisfied in Christ.

Be there first and then we will grow in the knowledge of all these other things that we need to learn from the Lord as well. Let's finish with prayer and then we'll be dismissed. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this word that we've received today and may we understand what it means to be rooted in Christ, what it means to hold fast to Christ.

We think about these things now. We're going to come back to this lesson again next week, but if there is any way in us that is human, that is preventing us from growing in the Lord, may we be convicted of those things and repent of them and continue to hold fast in Christ.

Grow us as we need to be grown, that we may know Christ all the more and at the same time grow with this wonderful body of believers where you have placed us. May we be receptive to those rebukes that we would be made more like Christ day by day.

It's in Jesus name that we pray, amen. Thank you. May we grow with the Lord.